


Infernal Devices

by mimikeyu



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Gen, Mastermind Souda Kazuichi, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimikeyu/pseuds/mimikeyu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world full of machines, the man with the toolset is king.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infernal Devices

**Author's Note:**

> I've never done any Mastermind stuff before and Souda is my SDR2 fave/precious son and I'm a monster and I love to see my faves suffer. I only rly wrote this bc im putting off writing my own Actual Important Stuff...

Monokuma dropped off the podium with a faint whine of power cutting out. There was a dull boom, and the room suddenly filled with thick bouts of lime green smoke. Hajime heard the others coughing and spluttering, and he held his hands up to his face, and tried to peer out through the smoke.

Slowly, the vapour started to part, drifting out to the far sides of the Courtroom floor. He could just make out a silhouette, standing at the podium where Monokuma had fallen a moment before. Hajime's arms fell limply to his sides as the veil parted, and the mastermind was revealed.

When they spoke, it was with a calm tone. In a voice Hajime had heard every day since arriving on Jabberwock Island...

“So, you figured it all out, huh? I have to admit, I'm a little bummed out.”

Kazuichi Souda was pouting, his arms folded across his chest. He lowered his gaze to take in the sight of his classmates' reactions. His pout fell away, only to be replaced with a shark-like grin.

“So what d'you think, guys?” he laughed. “Did I surprise you?”

“I-I do not understand!” Sonia cried, gripping the granite podium in front of her.

“Is this a joke?!” Fuyuhiko spat, narrowing his eyes. “How could it –“

“How could it be _me_?!” Kazuichi finished for him. He threw his arms wide. “How could it be that quivering mess, Kazuichi Souda? Huh?!”

“K-Kazuichi...” Hajime murmured, gazing down at the floor, unable to look at him. Souda's grin faltered.

“I won't lie to ya, Hajime,” he said, “it wasn't easy hiding the truth from you. And that wasn't just because you had Nagito and Chiaki to rely on before.”

“Shut up!” yelled Hajime, slamming a fist down on the podium. He'd screwed his eyes shut, but when he opened them again as he looked up at Souda, it was impossible to miss the tears that had began to form. “How could you do all this?! You're meant to be our friend!”

Kazuichi sighed, and overacted a slumping motion. When he spoke, he sounded dreary and lethargic. “You just don't get it, do you, Hajime? Hajime, Hajime, Hajime...” He shook his head, his braid bobbing off the side of his face. “Hajime, Hajime, Hajime, Hajime, Hajime...” He sighed again.

“Don't fuck with us here!” Fuyuhiko snapped, clenching his fists. But Kazuichi was far too busy retrieving a large crown from behind his podium. He threw his beanie into the air and it landed in the centre of the ring of stands, and he laughed as he placed the crown on his own head.

“Alright, alright!” he smiled. “We're disappointed you don't get it, Hajime. We're disappointed none of you get it. Where's Chiaki and Nagito when you need 'em, huh? They'd totally get it! Oh wait, they're dead, silly me!” He stifled a chuckle. “Nah, but how can you miss out on something so obvious?”

He swiped the crown off his own head and leaned across his podium, eyes large and pleading. When he spoke, his voice was weak, almost a whimper. “Please, Hajime, I need you to understand!”

Hajime looked back at him, aghast. “How can I ever understand why you've done this, Kazuichi? It doesn't make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense!” he retorted, pouting again. The sorrow in his eyes was gone now, completely replaced with irritation. He huffed, impatiently. “Want me to tell you? Huh? Huh?” He'd taken another change in mood, and now he just seemed eager to talk. When no reply came, he shrugged and said, “Look, you guys. Fuyuhiko, Akane, Sonia, Hajime... You're _all_ my friends! The others, all dead and buried, they were my friends too! And that's _exactly_ how I could do all this! Because I love each and every one of you, goddammit! And how can I show you how much I love you all without giving you my gift?”

“Your gift?!” Akane growled, cracking her knuckles. “I hope you kept the receipt, you psycho.”

“What... what is this gift?” asked Sonia. She was wringing her hands together nervously. She looked close to tears. Kazuichi gave her a sympathetic look as he grabbed the now deactivated Monokuma from the floor and held it in the air above his head, beaming happily.

“My gift is my despair, of course!” he cheered. He lowered Monokuma to cover his face, and in a scratchy impersonation of his voice, said, “So what d'you think, kids? Do you _love_ it?! Upupu!”

“Cut this shit out!” Fuyuhiko roared. “This doesn't make a shred of fuckin' sense! This has to be a trick!”

Kazuichi slumped again, and his voice took on that low, tired tone again. “You mean you don't love it? I... I built this world for you guys, y'know. I built this world for all of us.”

“Y-you built this world?” Hajime gasped. “You mean, you created the Neo World Program?”

“Well, yes and no,” Kazuichi said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. This was the closest to the Kazuichi that the others had got to know so well during their time together on the Island. He seemed so normal, just for that moment. But then, he produced a pair of safety goggles and snapped them on over his eyes. He covered his mouth with a hand, and spoke in a calm, detached tone. “I built the operating system from scratch. As the Ultimate Mechanic, it wasn't much of a challenge. The real challenge was working out what to do with Chihiro Fujisaki's work.”

“Chihiro... Fujisaki?”

“The Ultimate Programmer,” Hajime remembered. “Their name was on the list of the students who were part of the School Life of Mutual Killing. But they died – how did-”

“I can pull apart and reassemble a laptop in record time, are you honestly surprised?” Kazuichi sighed. “Once I had my hands on Chihiro Fujisaki's work, it was only a matter of housing it in a big enough system. And machines are my forte, y'know?”

He threw his arms wide and his large, pink eyes twitched in their sockets, and cackled with laughter. Hajime couldn't take his gaze off of him – there was no denying it now, Kazuichi was completely insane.

“Say hello to the New World!” Kazuichi roared, clenching his fists and sticking out his tongue at them. As if on cue, the world seemed to flip, and the room started to flicker and burble with static, like a TV set with bad reception. Hajime tried to yell out as the room seemed to split apart and fall away, but it was already too late. All he could see as the world disappeared into a pixellated void was Kazuichi's victorious grin.

His voice was carried out across the digital breeze as Hajime fell into darkness.

**“Game over, Hajime.”**

 


End file.
